MTG Salvation

This is something that's been on my mind for a while is I've noticed there is a significantly improvement in the quality of threats, while the quality of removal/ answers hasn't really kept up.

This has been incredibly pronounced in Legacy as I've found almost all decks, even the more controling decks such as UR Delver/ Bant Control/ Lands etc. have become incredibly aggressive with cards like Uro, Urza's Saga, Minsc and Boo, Murktide etc. and the traditional control suite of Swords/ Force/ Wasteland etc. are more about buying 1-2 turns so these decks can land their turn 4 Uro/ Minsc and Boo as opposed to the opponent's turn 2 combo.

I've notice that my worst performing cards have almost been universally interaction, which a few exceptions for overcosted answers. Does anyone else feel this? I've found that almost all decks need some form of a proactive gameplan by turns 2-3.

Cube is a different animal to legacy IMHO; since it is singleton the game plan is alot less consistent. Combo is pretty much non-existent in my environment so the games tend to revolve around combat.

I'd say removal in cube has been pretty solid over the last few years. Every set seems to have a new peice of cheap removal or answer to the current threat in standard.

I tend to lean on Mulldrifters over Baneslayers at 3+ mana so removal is less important at that point. Below 3 mana I already have a lot of good answers at 1-2 mana. There will occasionally be games where a Laelia, the Blade Reforged runs away with a game because I can't find removal but she can just as easily eat a Doom Blade variant or Swords.

I definitely don't want a world where every threat is a must answer bomb, but if removal gets TOO good then every creature has to be a Mulldrifter.

Hopefully that's coherent, I've had afew festive drinks.

I'm not sure what you mean by quality of removal not going up.

Cheapness? The recent Cut Down is a far cry better than cards that used to be played at that cost, like Regicide, with much more examples from recent sets.

Card advantage? You now have Prismari Command to mirror K-Command, and in mono red you now have cards like Delayed Blast Fireball and Seismic Wave.

Flexibility? Arguably has gone up to a terrifying degree in multiple aspects:
The cards themselves - you now have good modal removal in Bloodchief's Thirst, Murder on a land (Hagra Mauling), and even Damn that's also a Wrath.
Target flexibility - Prismatic Ending, Chaos Defiler, Tear Asunder and others beg to differ.
Effect saturation - whereas Ravenous Chupacabra used to be unmatched, 40k gave us 2 more variations of this effect on solid bodies. White even has Skyclave Apparition to get rid of most anything on a stick.
Castability - Lethal Scheme and Solitude join Snuff Out and Dismember as almost-or-completely free instant speed removal.

Your statement seems to be incredibly broad and generalizing. Perhaps you should try and specify any criteria that you feel is missing for your removal and we could help it out.

Quote from shermanido37 »

I'm not sure what you mean by quality of removal not going up.

Cheapness? The recent Cut Down is a far cry better than cards that used to be played at that cost, like Regicide, with much more examples from recent sets.

Card advantage? You now have Prismari Command to mirror K-Command, and in mono red you now have cards like Delayed Blast Fireball and Seismic Wave.

Flexibility? Arguably has gone up to a terrifying degree in multiple aspects:
The cards themselves - you now have good modal removal in Bloodchief's Thirst, Murder on a land (Hagra Mauling), and even Damn that's also a Wrath.
Target flexibility - Prismatic Ending, Chaos Defiler, Tear Asunder and others beg to differ.
Effect saturation - whereas Ravenous Chupacabra used to be unmatched, 40k gave us 2 more variations of this effect on solid bodies. White even has Skyclave Apparition to get rid of most anything on a stick.
Castability - Lethal Scheme and Solitude join Snuff Out and Dismember as almost-or-completely free instant speed removal.

Your statement seems to be incredibly broad and generalizing. Perhaps you should try and specify any criteria that you feel is missing for your removal and we could help it out.

My problem has more to do with the difficulty for reactive decks threats such as:

Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath / Oko, Thief of Crowns / Urza's Saga / Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes / Teferi, Time Raveler / Initiative cards etc.

They're also not really just Mulldrifter style cards, but cards that pack an enormous punch if not answered immediately. I've found at best you 2 for 1 yourself with your removal hoping your followup play is stronger than theirs. I've found that the best approach has just been to ignore them and to try to play threats that measure pound for pound and go over them.

Quote from steve_man »

This is something that's always been on my mind over the years, and the past couple of years have really exacerbated it. Right now my approach is to focus on cheaper, versatile removal that can cheap threats (think Prismatic Ending / Portable Hole / Cut Down) etc over traditional Doom Blades / Oblivion Ring effects. With threats also being much more consistent, I've also been scaling down on the critical mass of them (especially cheap aggro threats).

I might scale my cube from 540 back to 480 again as a balancing act so help combo / control. Aggro / midrange is very dominant right now, especially with initiative. Theoretically, combo can prey on these decks if they're more consistent with a smaller cube size. And if combo is more prevalent, then control will rise along with it to foil combo.

I'm writing this after having to deal with the ridiculousness of Turn 1 Ragavan into Turn 3 Minsc and Boo...

I've gone +1 black removal (Vendetta) and +1 Endurance. I think Eudurance is a good counter play to initiative/ aggro in general.

Gideon Jura with Archangel Avacyn for a similar reason, but Avacyn is a bit overcosted ...

The top-tier removal is currently in the form of creature ETB, 1 CMC removal and planeswalkers.

Solitude, fury, Oko, grist, daretti, mawloc, chaos defiler, lightning bolt, swords to plowshares etc.

Gone are the days of instant/sorcery heavy decks that 1 for 1 and pull out ahead of it with draw spells.

The best answer to initiative creatures are counter spells , dress down or comboing off before they take over. Not great options, since those are all bad against a high density of cheap creatures.

I like my spell based reactive decks to have plenty of counter magic, lots of cheap interaction and delve spells to pull ahead. Also, a few aggressive threats that can clock ramp decks.

Quote from steve_man »

This is something that's always been on my mind over the years, and the past couple of years have really exacerbated it. Right now my approach is to focus on cheaper, versatile removal that can cheap threats (think Prismatic Ending / Portable Hole / Cut Down) etc over traditional Doom Blades / Oblivion Ring effects. With threats also being much more consistent, I've also been scaling down on the critical mass of them (especially cheap aggro threats).

I might scale my cube from 540 back to 480 again as a balancing act so help combo / control. Aggro / midrange is very dominant right now, especially with initiative. Theoretically, combo can prey on these decks if they're more consistent with a smaller cube size. And if combo is more prevalent, then control will rise along with it to foil combo.

some ideas If you are trying to increase the power of cheaty combo relative to Agro.

- Reduce size of cube
- increase diversity and density of cheaty targets. There’s only so many sneak attacks/channel printed, but there’s an abundance of top end. If cheat decks don’t have to prioritize top end in the draft they can focus more on fixing/enablers/sideboard cards etc. Have “too many” rather than the right amount.
Often different matchups call for different top end! I want to be able to board out my sundering Titan for a Sphinx of the steel wind against mono R etc.

-support more midrange threats that are great against Agro but meh elsewhere. “Sideboard” cards like timely reinforcements, baneslayer angels , forked bolt , lovestruck beast are ok.

Balancing is always so tricky!
I have a target optimal Agro threshold to be something ~25-30% of the decks drafted.

I haven't had too much trouble with reanimator, but thats because I have cards like Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast / Incarnation Technique / Dictate of Karametra / Flash as backup enablers.

- Lukka was something I kept as part of the former polymoprh package. Its been great as both a top-end for Persist, Red- Welder, red-green ramp and Black-Red Reanimator.
- Dictate of Karametra was originally for storm, but its serviceable in fatty cheat.

The other thing I've found is the Red-X sweepers have significantly improved in quality given how low to the ground a lot of decks are and they can often count as 0.5 to 1 enabler as it buys times.

I've found that for persist/ Heliod combos, the best cards are Ao, the Dawn Sky / Reveillark / Protean Hulk which are excellent as blockers against aggressive decks, trade up in value while also assembling your combo.

Quote from LucidVision »

Balancing is always so tricky!
I have a target optimal Agro threshold to be something ~25-30% of the decks drafted.

I've been theorizing and I feel part of the problem might be an attempt to try to make the colors competitive with each other:

- White traditionally is the weak color in cube; It has good removal, but for the most part its unable really compete in the late game against the other colors and it must rely on aggro.
- Black has been split cross sacrifice/ stax, reanimator, storm, control etc. I've found that without sufficient Thoughseize variants, black more or less needs to play 1-drops to stay competitive.
- Red traditionally is the most aggressive color out of the three, but recently its demonstrated red can and should be less aggressive than White-Black as its 3-4 drops have improved significantly in the last few years and can afford to go a bit bigger with its burn spells.

I'm thinking moving forward, red should NOT be the aggressive color and move towards more of a midrange/ combo color while white should be the predominate aggro color and aggressive decks should be more sacrifice/ stax based rather than creature/ burn based.

Quote from steve_man »

This is something that's always been on my mind over the years, and the past couple of years have really exacerbated it. Right now my approach is to focus on cheaper, versatile removal that can cheap threats (think Prismatic Ending / Portable Hole / Cut Down) etc over traditional Doom Blades / Oblivion Ring effects. With threats also being much more consistent, I've also been scaling down on the critical mass of them (especially cheap aggro threats).

I might scale my cube from 540 back to 480 again as a balancing act so help combo / control. Aggro / midrange is very dominant right now, especially with initiative. Theoretically, combo can prey on these decks if they're more consistent with a smaller cube size. And if combo is more prevalent, then control will rise along with it to foil combo.

I feel that if aggro is now the more dominant archetype, we should be played more Red-X sweepers such as Subterranean Tremors or Rolling Earthquake to help archetype decks such as Lands, Storm, Reanimator, Artifacts etc. buy time against aggressive decks.

I'm gonna state the obvious here, since I've been annoyed about must-answer bomb creatures since Baneslayer. Just because cards exist and are good doesn't mean you need to play them.

I personally find the design behind cards like Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer to be distasteful and ill-balanced. Who needs 'em?

There's no need to play cards you don't like, especially if you don't like what they do to an environment. It's not like it's hard to find cool cards to try.

I will also say that I agree with shermanido37 that we have gotten a huge number of worthwhile answer cards in the last few years. People have given several examples, and there are plenty more that haven't been mentioned like Loran of the Third Path, Witness Protection, Weakstone's Subjugation, Unholy Heat, March of Otherworldly Light, Swift Reconfiguration, and plenty more. Even colorless options have gotten deeper with things like Karn's Sylex, Ugin, the Ineffable, and dorky commons like Ninja's Kunai (which may not rock the universe, but compares quite favorably to previous options).

They have tried a lot of things with answers lately, and some of it has really been nice. Hand disruption could still use more options (Dreams of Steel and Oil is lovely, but it's no Thoughtsieze), and counter magic hasn't moved very far. Black also continues to bafflingly lack good mass-removal options that don't break the bank. And green could still use help despite some killer Naturalize variants.

Despite all this, the power of runaway bombs is undeniable. But hey, if those cards lead to unfun play patterns, just cut 'em. There have to be cards you'd love to try if only you had room.

Quote from Mergatroid_Jones »

I'm gonna state the obvious here, since I've been annoyed about must-answer bomb creatures since Baneslayer. Just because cards exist and are good doesn't mean you need to play them.

I personally find the design behind cards like Minsc & Boo, Timeless Heroes, Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath, and Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer to be distasteful and ill-balanced. Who needs 'em?

There's no need to play cards you don't like, especially if you don't like what they do to an environment. It's not like it's hard to find cool cards to try.

I will also say that I agree with shermanido37 that we have gotten a huge number of worthwhile answer cards in the last few years. People have given several examples, and there are plenty more that haven't been mentioned like Loran of the Third Path, Witness Protection, Weakstone's Subjugation, Unholy Heat, March of Otherworldly Light, Swift Reconfiguration, and plenty more. Even colorless options have gotten deeper with things like Karn's Sylex, Ugin, the Ineffable, and dorky commons like Ninja's Kunai (which may not rock the universe, but compares quite favorably to previous options).

They have tried a lot of things with answers lately, and some of it has really been nice. Hand disruption could still use more options (Dreams of Steel and Oil is lovely, but it's no Thoughtsieze), and counter magic hasn't moved very far. Black also continues to bafflingly lack good mass-removal options that don't break the bank. And green could still use help despite some killer Naturalize variants.

Despite all this, the power of runaway bombs is undeniable. But hey, if those cards lead to unfun play patterns, just cut 'em. There have to be cards you'd love to try if only you had room.

I've seen people play with lower power level cubes/ cubes with 2000+ cards. I can definitely see the appeal as it opens the possibility for more decks/ card variety.

Quote from steve_man »

This is something that's always been on my mind over the years, and the past couple of years have really exacerbated it. Right now my approach is to focus on cheaper, versatile removal that can cheap threats (think Prismatic Ending / Portable Hole / Cut Down) etc over traditional Doom Blades / Oblivion Ring effects. With threats also being much more consistent, I've also been scaling down on the critical mass of them (especially cheap aggro threats).

I might scale my cube from 540 back to 480 again as a balancing act so help combo / control. Aggro / midrange is very dominant right now, especially with initiative. Theoretically, combo can prey on these decks if they're more consistent with a smaller cube size. And if combo is more prevalent, then control will rise along with it to foil combo.

I've noticed your cube isn't singleton. Any reaosn you're not willing to break singleton for removal?

Quote from steve_man »

I've always been maxing out my Earthquakes and play a good amount of dividable burn + things like Delayed Blast Fireball / Seismic Wave and have played them a lot in combo either in the maindeck / sideboard to pretty good success. That being said, being defensive / reaction is still a pretty unfavorable position to be in a lot of Vintage cubes I've been playing.

I currently went back down to 480 to see how things would re-balance themselves. Small sample size of 5 drafts so far, but there's definitely a higher uptick in the success of combo / synergy decks over aggro / goodstuff aggressive midrange. I'm still trying to tweak the threat density to give defensive / reactive control room to breathe, but that's still a work in progress. Today I randomly thought of trying a small miracle package with Terminus / Triumph of Saint Katherine, might be worth testing it to bolster control.

What are your thoughts on cards like Thing in the Ice? It's a cheap blocker that can slow the game down, but also threatens a board wipe if you flip it, which should be easy considering all the cheap cantrips you run. It opens you up to removal from the aggro player, but I see that as a good thing because they have to take a turn off or go off curve to answer your creature.

I see Clarion Spirit and Ledger Shredder in a similar light, where you get board presence for casting your set up spells and forcing aggro to interact more.

I’d recommmend re-evaluating ledger shredder as more of a midrange card.

Yes it can bring the beats in a spellsmatter deck, but it’s high toughness and looting is just as well suited to a slower deck.

it fits very well with delve , since it pairs well with cantrips and fills the graveyard.

I've played quite a bit of spells matters in BRO draft and in cube and I've found the template Wizard uses to design these cards is roughly this:

- If you can get 1 trigger off, you have usually an below rate, but playable creature
- If you can get 2 triggers, then you usually have a slightly above rate creature
- If you can get 3+ triggers, then it can run away with the game.

Spells matters decks at its best are midrange decks with higher than average density of removal spells. My experience is Ledger Shredder plays really well and is very strong in vintage cubes where it is common to turn 1 moxen + Shredder. Furthermore, DRC/ Shredder/ Jeskai Ascendancy are all incredibly strong with discarding excess lands off cards like Land Tax/ Treasure Cruise etc.

Its main advantage is that it is almost always more efficient than the opponent.

The problem with Clarion spirit is that its frequently a 2 mana Pia Nalaar and without the looting/ opponent cast 2 spells in one turn, it is often difficult to trigger a second time.

Thing in the Ice historically for me is less of a spells matters card, but more of a control/ combo card to buy time/ flip into a win con/ force the opponent to keep open mana.

This is something I would like to elaborate a bit about spells matters:

The goal of spells matters in cube isn't to cast a turn 2 Young Pyromancer followed by 2 Gitaxian Probe. Its a strong play, but that's not realistic in cube and playing a Pia and Kiran Nalaar on turn 2 usually isn't the end of the world as the opponent.

My experience during brother's war was cards like Third Path Iconoclast, Wing Commando, Dwarven Forge-Chanter, Levitating Statue are ideal to play defensive with red removal/ cantrips and the goal is that the 1/1, prowess etc can trade effectively on defense while you can pull ahead with removal, card filter and occasional flyers. (You can often bluff instant speed interaction making combat more difficult for the opponent).

The last thing to keep in mind is part of the strength from cards like Thing in the Ice/ Shredder/ Young Pyromancer is the hidden information. Suppose you have a Young Pyromancer on the field and you have no instants and your opponent has a 4/4 or a 2/1. The opponent cannot see your hand and there are cases where they may choose not to attack into a potential Bolt + Token.

Similarly, I've played my share of Shredder in legacy and I've seen people remove it very proactive as they're unsure whats in my hand and how beneficial the looting would be (or how easily I can trigger it).

Also one last thing - play Roast. Yes it looks terrible, but red decks really appreciate the 5 damage.